Terrible hair — it’s not just for blockbuster season! The trailer for Adam McKay’s star-studded The Big Short dropped today, and lo and behold, the movie’s bevy of Oscar-nominated actors all turn out to share one thing: hair that can only be described as subprime. Paradoxically, the badness of the hair on display only increases the film’s prestige points; If these guys weren’t all so good at acting, the trailer seems to be telling us, there’s no way they’d be able to pull off such terrible hair. (It’s Too Bad to Fail.) Whose hair is merely unfortunate, and whose ascends to the very heights of lunacy? Let’s take another look at the trailer below, and then we’ll get to the rankings:
5. Hamish Linklater (Role unknown)
In the part of “The Other Guy in the Room With All the Famous People,†all Hamish Linklater gets in this trailer is a handful of reaction shots. That’s true of his hair here, too, which is almost certainly Linklater’s real hair. Wig budgets are for movie stars, not character actors!
4. Christian Bale (Michael Burry)
The first joke in the trailer is about how Bale’s character gets his hair cut at Supercuts. And honestly, that’s an insult to Supercuts. This hair is bad: stringy, flat, and matted all at the same time. And yet it falls slightly short of the ridiculous standards maintained by his co-stars. It’s horrible, yes, but not insane.
3. Steve Carell (Steve Eisman)
Now we’re talking. Unlike Carell’s austere Foxcatcher cut, this wig is meant to be fun, flirty, and free. It’s winking at you from across the room. It’s calling you “babe.†It’s telling you you’ve just got to go up to Napa this year. It’s the follicular equivalent of a leisure suit.
2. Ryan Gosling (Greg Lippmann)
Real or fake — does it even matter? Ryan Gosling has always wanted to be a real New York boy, and now, with the aid of this dark, greased-up hair helmet, he’s finally done it. This is Five Boroughs all the way.
1. Brad Pitt (Ben Hockett)
Shorting bad housing stocks, directing acclaimed historical documentaries — is there anything this wig can’t do?